West Virginia Pension RipOff
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Miners, supporters gather in WV for Patriot protest
4/1/13
Wayne Thompson, a member of UMWA Local 1793 in western Kentucky, was on a bus at 1 a.m. Monday for the trip to save his retirement and health benefits.
Thompson was one of several hundred miners gathered outside the Charleston Civic Center before 9 a.m. in anticipation for a rally inside and outside to draw attention to plans by Patriot Coal Co. to shed its retirement and health care obligations to its employees via bankruptcy court.
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http://www.statejournal.com/story/21843441/miners-supporters-gather-in-wv-for-patriot-protest
Here's the story:
In the fall of 2007, Peabody Energy Corp. (BTU), the coal-mining giant, spun off all its unionized mines into a new company, Patriot Coal Corp. (PCXCQ) In the process, it got rid of the promises it had made over generations to coal miners and their families.
Or, as Peabodys chief executive officer put it, Were reducing our legacy liabilities roughly $1 billion. This was such a good idea that another coal giant, Arch Coal Inc. (ACI), unloaded its union mines on Patriot as well, though it cycled them first through yet another front. All totted up, Patriot now had 10,000 retirees and their health-care benefits on its books.
This company was designed to fail. Patriot is almost certainly the only five-year-old company on earth with three times as many retirees as employees, 90 percent of whom never worked for the company. And fail it did, declaring bankruptcy last summer. Now its going through Chapter 11 reorganization and hoping to emerge freed of its obligations for the pensions and medical care of those miners.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-17/america-s-dirtiest-coal-company.html